PLEASANTON -- A former Fremont teacher once sent to prison for possessing child pornography has been arrested on child molestation charges for the second time in a dozen years, according to authorities.

Michael Schoop, 63, was arrested June 12 in Pleasanton on suspicion of having sexual intercourse or sodomizing a child under 10, and engaging in oral copulation or sexual penetration with a child under 10, according to an Alameda County jail records website.

Schoop, a former special needs teacher at Fremont's Mission Valley Elementary School, was arrested in October 2001 after a 45-year-old man told authorities he was molested from 1967 to 1971.

Michael Schoop (File Photo)

In a plea deal, a state prosecutor dropped four child molestation counts against Schoop after he accepted responsibility on a federal charge of possessing child pornography on his computer. Schoop was sentenced to a year and a day in federal custody.

Schoop's lawyer at the time, Bruce Nickerson, denied the molestation allegations, saying that "Mr. Schoop doesn't have that built into his genes at all. There is not a shred of evidence that he has any sexual interest in children."

Outside of court, Schoop had said the images were automatically downloaded to his computer during a search for asparagus recipes -- a vegetable name that is apparently synonymous with boys' private parts, a judge said at the time.

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Schoop is being held at Santa Rita Jail in lieu of $410,000 bail. A hearing on a motion to reduce his bail is scheduled for Tuesday morning.